Fields of green

Visual Arts

The Harrison Center Gallery’s Wintergreen exhibition is touted as “Cool, Fresh, Minty Art.” The show is more or less true to its claims; most of it is green or contains some semblance or suggestion of green, the color. But there’s also green, as in naïve or innocent: Mixed in with the work of professional artists are smatterings of children’s and beginners’ art.

‘Domini’ by Kipp Normand, part of the ‘Wintergreen’ show at the Harrison Gallery

Artists, though, seem to congregate in tribes in this town, but there are more artists included here than the usual Harrison tribe. To give mention to a few of these: There’s Susan Brewer’s “Practice Sage Silence,” an abstract, two-paneled depiction of a slightly off-center central round shape, appearing as a blank face. A watch? A person? Only the artist knows for sure what this symbol symbolizes, but in this context, it’s a pod or an egg, something from which something else grows. Perhaps that something will be green. Jan Flexon’s “Nuclear Green,” on the other hand, is decidedly darker, and not life-giving. A series of photographs depict U.S. Army troops in Mannheim, Germany, engaged in off-duty activities such as chess and football — encased in nuclear protective gear. And then there’s Jeff Martin’s cube with a green light, some sort of industrial piece of something lit from within. Surely this is a metaphor for … something. In any event, it’s light and lovely — and green. This extended tribe of artists also includes mature, conceptual, quirky and/or intellectually suggestive works by Bruce Campbell, Casey Roberts, Rene Gonzalez, Becky Wilson, Quincy Owens, Kipp Normand and others … then there’s the traditional: Gail Goodrich-Harwood’s landscape painted on an old window, and Jason Dorsey’s landscape painted on a canvas. There’s too much more to mention, and much of it, too, deserves to be mentioned. It’s a compendium, an omnibus, a happy conflagration of theme-inspired or selected work. A fertile green field, you might say. Wintergreen is on view through Jan. 22. Harrison Gallery is located in the Harrison Center for the Arts, 1505 N. Delaware St., 514-6787.